New Crits

Steinhauer’s period novels are full of cloak and dagger, but they’re also deeply immersed in their times and places. Set in a frayed and decaying country, his first five books vividly portray how communism eats away at the essential bonds of trust that hold a society together. “The Tourist,” by contrast, never evokes a similar sense of recognition — a sense that, yes, this is what it has been like to live in America the past eight years.

Like Greene’s [early] entertainments and Le Carré’s earliest work, The Tourist is a flawed work that fails to achieve the literary standing both authors’ later spy stories would.

The Touristsomething

But a spy story need not be The Quiet American or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to be worth reading. The Tourist isn’t, and it’s certainly still worth any discerning reader’s time. Indeed, the most discerning reader will certainly keep an eye out for Steinhauer’s future work, hopeful that this talented young writer will once again take the spy story to great, new heights.